Growing up, I had no plans to become an artist, it simply didn’t occur to me that this would, or could, be an option. However, life often has its own agenda that can sometimes run in opposition to what we think is best for us, and I feel that this is a rather wonderful thing. This piece is based around a watershed experience in my life. A life that I had built on shifting sands was beginning to crumble. However, in amongst all this turmoil, I do what I always do when struggling and started to chant’ “NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO, NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO…” over and over again. I ‘heard’ a very quiet inner voice speak; it said: “The answer to your prayers lies within your current circumstance”.
I changed the focus of my chanting from denial of the experience of that moment to one of gratitude and it was at this moment that I felt as if I dropped through the surface of a polluted and rubbish strewn sea into the most beautiful clear water below. The experience was full of paradox, I had never experienced anything like it, and yet it was intimately familiar. It seemed to come from within and yet it also felt that it was coming from without. I had never felt such peace and security and yet outwardly, everything was so chaotic! Yet, this very clear message welled up from deep within me: EVERYTHING IS OK.
The intensity of this experience passed quickly, but the vestige of it has remained. It was during the following year that I bought a large bag of scrap fabric from a dress shop and spent many, many hours sifting and sorting through the pile, not discarding anything and looking to see how I could produce the most personal value from each piece. I eventually made several small collages from these scraps, and the rest as they say, is history.